han the occasional capture of a shark, or a
capful of wind, to break the somewhat wearisome monotony of the voyage,
during which I devoted an hour or two every day to the improvement of
Master Billy Stenson's education; also giving a considerable amount of
study to the late skipper's diary, in the endeavour to arrive at some
sort of conclusion as to the whereabouts of the spot where Barber's
alleged treasure was to be looked for. Taking Barber's determination of
the latitude of the place, 3 degrees 50 minutes South, as being
approximately correct, I ruled a pencil line representing that parallel
right across the chart and noted the various islands that it crossed.
Then, marking the spot where the man had been turned adrift by the Dutch
skipper, I strove to trace the course over which the boat had drifted,
taking into consideration the prevailing winds and currents, as set
forth in the Sailing Directions; and in this way I ultimately arrived at
the conclusion that the spot we were seeking would be found somewhere
between the meridians of 125 degrees and 135 degrees east longitude.
Still assuming Barber's story to be true, I reasoned that the fact of
the stranded ship having remained so long where she was, apparently
unvisited and uninterfered with--until the Englishman's arrival upon the
scene--argued that she was to be found on an island not only uninhabited
but also very rarely visited; and reasoning thus I was at length enabled
to make a fairly shrewd guess as to the most likely direction in which
to look for her; and in that direction I accordingly headed the ship.

It was about a month after our passage through Maurissa Strait that, as
we were working to windward against a light and fickle breeze, land was
sighted about three points on the weather bow. The time was close upon
eight bells in the afternoon watch, and the land sighted was a mere dot
of faintest blue showing just clear of the horizon. I had been
anticipating its appearance at any moment since I had worked out my
sights at noon and pricked off the ship's position on the chart, for the
spot of which we were in search was no unknown, mysterious island.
Careful study of Barber's narrative, as recorded in the late Skipper
Stenson's diary, had convinced me that the island was quite well known
and had been more or less thoroughly surveyed; and exhaustive study of
the diary and the chart combined had finally led me to the conclusion
that if the treasure reall